The original minion versions of Misaki and Hamelin will no longer be playable in M2E due to their promotions to Masters. The models will be playable as the masters, and Justin has said that those are the only "models" that won't be getting rules upgrades. Insignificant models are now referred to as Peons. Existing Henchmen will be upgraded to Masters, characters like the Judge will now be labeled as Henchmen. The various ranks allow certain numbers of upgrades, negating my previous guess about being master-specific.

Ca is going to be spell-specific rather than model-specific, to allow models to be better at some spells than others without needing a wall of text on the card. Casting duels now work the same way as normal combat duels. There's still a CC target number, but casting is an opposed duel where the defender flips at the same time.

It sounds like the upgrade mechanic is going to be focused on Masters, allowing you to customize a bit so a mirror match isn't necessarily identical...

Pre-measuring will be allowed.

Masters have 3 AP across the board now. Sounds like rules like Melee Expert are going to apply more to minions now.

Red Joker now does Severe+Weak rather than Severe+flip. Flipping the Red Joker now prevents the opponent from cheating.

Timing of conditions are now always spelled out instead of defaulting to the Resolve Effects step. Soulstones are now spent before a duel to add a + to the flip; if used defensively they also add a - to the damage flip. You can soulstone before a flip to add a suit. Soulstones can also be spent to cycle two cards after drawing your hand at the start of the turn.

50 SS games are recommended. Most model costs will likely go up a bit to allow for more variance in cost-to-power ratios. Starter boxes may add up to 30 on average rather than 25...

Brawls sound like they'll be relegated to story encounters now.

Avatars restricted to games of 40ss or higher. Avatars now have different costs rather than a flat 2ss.

Manifesting now works the same way across the board: When the master activates, you flip a card (cheatable). That card goes in a Manifest Stack. Each avatar has a Manifest cost (e.g. 30), and when the total of the stack hits that number, you manifest. When the avatar takes damage, you discard a card fro mthe stack, and when the stack hits 0, the avatar turns back into the regular master. Manifest rules still subject to change.

Strategies now work as in GG2013, and schemes can be worth up to 4 VP each.

Strategies are now shared across the board, schemes are now more important in order to maintain the asymmetric gameplay dynamic. Schemes can now be worth more unannounced this way. Old strategies are likely to work into story encounters rather than the core list now. 19 schemes, flip to create a pool of 5 schemes for both players to pick from. Keeps players from camping the same schemes without forcing "unique schemes". Any model that can Interact can do that to drop a Scheme marker. Accomplishing Schemes rely on the markers, which allow for bluffing with unannounced schemes. Sounds like the objective-based gameplay is maintained through the schemes more than the strats.